Sylvia's Journal

The main event for the day was our visit to the Kabul International Agricultural Fair. It isn’t quite the Topsfield Fair and there weren’t any animals or mega pumpkins. Still, it was a very impressive show of what Afghans could do if this place would simply come to its senses and return to trade and agriculture, as it used to do in between its many wars. Everyone was beaming proudly – it was surely a show of possibilities.

There were booths manned and womanned by members of agricultural cooperatives who produce dairy products, grains and nuts, fresh and dried fruit, honey, compressed rice hulls for woodburning stoves, and more.

A graphic design and printing firm handed out bags with beautiful posters and everywhere there were brochures with the familiar USAID logo.

M and her family came along. They were waiting for us with a hot meal, kebabs and rice, sitting cross-legged on a colorful ground cover under a gaily colored tent that made me feel like royalty on a picnic outing.

I took M’s little boys for a walk when they got tired of sitting with the slow eating adults. As boys would, they were drawn to the large shiny tractors from the New Holland company that were within our view. The salesman helped us with the photo opportunity by putting them in the driver’s seat.

There weren’t many foreigners and so we were the odd people out. This meant that instead of us taking pictures of the Afghans, they took pictures of us standing next to the occupants of the booths. Young men practiced their English with us. Just when Vince and I had complimented them on their fine English (we could understand their questions and they our answers) an Afghan American passerby tossed a less friendly comment in the middle of our conversation by saying ‘work on your English first.’

I was thrilled to find a supplier of lamb wool and even cashmere (beautiful but very pricey). He and his spinning wheel ladies live close to our neighborhood. He told me he would be happy to come and deliver goods to my house or office. I am assured of a full knitting winter season! We also found a supplier of tofu who needs just 24 hours notice to provide us with a batch.

After the fair we went to Chicken Street, my first visit after Steve had left, now more than 3 months ago, and Vince’s first visit. We joined Peter who was already knee-high into carpets and served as Vince’s advisor, which then led to a sale. One hallway, one baby room and one living room in Namibia will be graced with Afghan carpets next week.

Vince and I cooked a TV dinner (gazpacho, cold chicken and fries). We used the cheap French fries cutter that bit the dust halfway through the cutting operation. This is a common occurrence with cheap Chinese goods. It went into the dustbin. Throwing things away does not have the finality it has back in the US. Someone will go through our garbage next week, take the defective cutter and, recycle it, making a little money along the way.

Over and after dinner we watched an Inspector Lewis (former sidekick of Mahler loving Inspector Morse who has come into his own) movie which was so complicated that we had to rewind many scenes to get the clues we had missed. Maybe this is the new reality of getting older – you need several people to piece together the plot. In our case even the brains of three people weren’t not enough to get it.